4 posts tagged “cape town”
Well, we didn't quite blog about our entire South Africa trip as expected. We blame three weeks of travel with less internet access than expected, and not our own neglect or anything. :)
To summarize the remaining destinations:
From St. Lucia we drove back south along the coast to Durban, this time in daylight, and took a flight to Port Elizabeth to meet with Timo's cousins who live in the area. They kindly hosted us for several days, and took us on an epic off-road trip through the local mountains. Wow! We also attended a local Afrikaaners festival, where signs were actually in Afrikaans and people spoke to us in Afrikaans unlike other parts of South Africa. We can't thank our hosts enough for their hospitality, time, and providing us a peek into the lives of locals.
At Port Elizabeth, we rented another car for a long drive, and we truly mean loooong drive through the Western Cape back to Cape Town. Again, locals thought we were not so sane to drive that route in two days, but we did it.
The first day we drove to Storm's River Mouth, a relatively unvisited beach area this time of year and absolutely gorgeous! We stopped at several such destinations along the way, saw dolphins surfing in the waves, beautiful ocean views with rugged coastlines, and baboons hanging out in the street. It was a truly scenic drive. That night we stayed at Knysna - one of the more touristy destinations. Next day, we drove westward onto George, then went north by climbing over a mountain pass (wow!) to Oudtshoorn (say that 10 times fast!). We had what the town is famous for...ostriches. I actually had a salad with avocadoes that were to die for. Brian had the meat. I tasted it. Tastes like a lighter more tender filet mignon. Mmmm. Anyway! From there, we drove many many hours through the high dessert. The most exciting scenery was the occasional ostrich that popped up every...who knows...50 miles or so.
With great thanks to Lonely Planet for the best guidebook recommendation of the trip, we stopped in a town that is nothing more than a blip in a motonous landscape. Boplaas. There we had the BEST award winning port wine, and the price? Very reasonable. Sorry fans, not available for import to the U.S. :( But it should be!
We drove onward. More ostriches, then headed back south towards the coast via another mountain pass. Again. Wow! What a beautiful and environmentally diverse country. Our next destinations were the wine country towns of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek.
We stayed in Stellenbosh for two nights. Traveling in South Africa during their winter afforded us some luxuries like staying at a 4 star B&B at Jacanda Farms. Highly recommeded for everything, especially the passion fruit at breakfast! Napa Valley has NOTHING on Stellenbosch when it comes to scenery. Many of the buildings date back to the 17th and 18th centuries. Beyond that, the mountain backdrop is dramatic and stunning. As for the wines? Well...we didn't have much luck, but that could have been the places we visited.
Franschhoek was formerly a French settlement, and as with all things French you can expect great cuisine in this area - which was our main activity the second day in wine country.
After the wine country, we were relaxed, rested and ready to return to our favorite city in South Africa - Cape Town. Not much else to report here. It unfortunately rained our final days so we didn't have a chance to go up to Table Mountain for city views. However, we did drive up the moutain as far as we could and felt satisfied by what we saw. We also visited the University of Cape Town and bought t-shirts there. The comedy of our time in the university's bookstore is that the number of Americans buying stuff outnumbered the South Africans in there. Typical consumers. ;) We met a couple of students from UC Riverside.
Lastly, we visited the Cecil Rhodes memorial cuz despite his colonialist history, USC did win a Rhodes Scholarship in 2008 so naturally I (Noosha) had to pose by his statue. Besiiides, these days the Rhodes Foundation is open and equal. To segway this philosophy into a conclusion... Equality and stability is something we hope for all South Africans. Truly. :) We heard too many negative comments about the state of their country while we there. There are too many marvelous things in this country for anything tragic to happen.
Left two pics: Stellenbosch ~ ~ Right three: Storm's River Mouth and Western Cape coastal stops
Today the weather was not so nice for heading up to Table Mountain, so we headed into the city to shop. We hit up the V&A Waterfront. One of the guide books mentions Cape Town is proud of the gentrification which has taken place at the V&A. It was a nice enough shopping center but it is just clothing shops and stuff. A bit too manufactured and Disneyesque for our liking. Got plenty of that stuff in the States. If we haven't found kitschy African stuff by the time we are back we will head to one of the many African crafts shops at the V&A.
Next we tooled on over to Long Street, City Bowl area. This area reminded us a bit of the Market area in San Francisco with some buildings looking as if they were plucked right out of the French Quarter in New Orleans. Parking was interesting. Pull up to any open street parking spot and before you can get out of your car a parking attendant is there to take your parking toll. You decide how long you want to stay up to the maximum allowed for the area and you're all set.
We found a few really cool little shops with music and African themed tees. Noosha got a little art too. After a while it started to sprinkle a bit so we ducked into a cafe for a milkshake and chai tea. Nice little cafe with a strong alt flair. Two girls purchased an awesome photo of the Beatles circa Sergeant Peppers right off the wall of the cafe just to give an idea of the place. Next we strolled into a music store specializing in African music. We purchased an album playing in the store by Goldfish. Cool stuff.
Given the increasing rain we decided to drive around a bit looking at
neighborhoods and get some photos for Nick Green of the new football (soccer) stadium being
built for the 2010 World Cup in SA. Nick is the husband of Kayla,
whom I work with at the City; he writes the 100 Percent Soccer: Soccer In and Around Los Angeles blog.
The following are a few pics of the stadium:
On the way back to our B&B in Camps
Bay we stopped off to
grab some food for another late lunch. Our original intention was to hit
up this African place we spotted but they were not open yet. So we headed
a few door down to this little place called Caveau Deli. Think of the best
artisan cafe in Napa. Noosha
had fresh handmade ravioli with butternut squash and feta with creamy butternut
squash sauce and I had fresh handmade pasta with this amazing sauce with bacon
in it (that will come as no surprise to some of you), a leak and mushroom
quiche, and a Syrah. Every bite was perfect. This place is a perfect
10! Oh and the best part...the bill was US$22. We are still full now and
contemplating heading back for a dinner of dessert at Caveau.
Tomorrow we are headed to Kruger National Park. We’re not sure if we’ll have internet connection there, so don’t worry about lions having eaten us if you don’t see a post from us for a few days. :)
-Brian the epic blogger, with edits and final comments by Noosha the contributing blogger
Today can be summed up by one word: windy. It was windy out there today kids. The kind of wind that makes you earn every step. We got a nice early start today about 11:00AM and drove south along the Atlantic making our way towards Cape Point.
Here is a nice picture looking south a short distance away from the B&B:
Random Ostrich cruzin' down the road:
After Cape Point we visited Boulders Beach. Sight of African Penguins chillin' on an amazing beach.
Good morning! Our 27 hour journey turned into a 30 hour journey, but we arrived safely and well, AND we got a good night's rest. We haven't left our B&B yet, but the coastal view is WOW. I think we're going to enjoy Cape Town. Here is Brian with the details while I go get ready!
Noosha
As Noosha mentioned, the journey was long. Three movies, multiple magazine articles, countless airplane meals, and several transfers. We arrived at LAX at 6:00AM on Sunday and arrived in Cape Town around 10:00PM Monday. Unfortunately I didn't get to see the terminal in Dakar as we sat on the tarmac and not at a terminal, oh well.
Going to Africa is a bit different than going to other places we have traveled. Namely people come here to kill. We saw several people dressed as if they were going on safari the moment the exited the plane. Seriously, they had the safari shirts, zip off pants, their safari hats with one side pinned up, and camo everything. This one guy had some tree camo shirt and matching jacket and backpack. Too funny.
Interestingly we sat next to a South African Parliament member on the flight from Joburg to Cape Town (in coach no less). It was like sitting next to Dianne Feinstein or something. Very down to earth guy who got us pillows and shared his chips with us. He invited us over for dinner with his wife while in Cape Town and told us to call him if we need anything while in his country.
In typical fashion we threw ourselves into the adventure head first. Nothing like arriving in a new country after traveling for 27 hours with minimal sleep than renting a manual car and driving on the wrong side of the road. Yep. We picked up our little Opal Corsa manual (a week old I might add) at the wrong terminal and were set loose to wreak havoc on the roads of Cape Town. Actually it was not bad at all. I keep telling myself (and Noosha yells to) KEEP LEFT!
We managed to get ourselves a bit lost getting to the hotel. Add to that we really had no directions to the hotel. All we had was an address and a note that it was off the main road. We drove up and down the main road 3 times and no Hove St. As luck would have it we found a police officer patrolling the neighborhood who nicely escorted up to Hove St around midnight.
The B&B is quite nice. I am writing now in the living room looking over the Atlantic with Table Mountain behind us. You can see the cable car out the back from the pool. The winds are quite stiff but the sun is out and the winds are actually kind of warm. Things are shaping up to be a great day!
Brian
(the epic blogger)
